"Wokeist" - When people talk about progressivism without acquaintance

[Lexicus]

I have entirely lost the thread of this scenario.

My point is that you are drawing distinctions without difference in order to invent grounds on which to condemn the "woke" without ever actually engaging their arguments. You don't need to specifically respond to claims that a piece of media is racist, for example, if you can just frame the claim that it is racist and that people shouldn't watch it as some kind of illegitimate attack on the foundations of civilization (or cherished liberal values, or whatever).

This is exactly what the right-wing moral panic about "cancel culture" and "woke" is designed to do: to shut down the critical faculties by stirring up, well, panic - by asking questions like "are people trying to slightly improve society ACTUALLY A TOTALITARIAN MOB BENT ON DESTROYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF A FREE SOCIETY?"

Yes, "we should boycott X" is persuasion, actually boycotting it is an attempt to exercise control.

This claim and the distinction it implies is, to use a phrase you used not so long ago, self-evidently ludicrous. Like seriously, not ten posts ago you were saying this:

I said that an attempt to exercise control over the distribution and consumption of media remains an attempt to exercise control even when it is carried out through a framework of individual consumption choices.

I did not say that any exercise of individual consumption choices is, therefore, an attempt to exercise control over the distribution and consumption of media. That's self-evidently ludicrous, and attributing such an absurd position to me suggests that you're going out of your way to find the least charitable interpretation of other people's posts.

But now you're saying the opposite. Remember, a boycott is just a bunch of people deciding not to consume something. So that is, literally, an "attempt to exercise control", according to you, so now we are back at "not watching something is an attempt to exercise control" which is, as you say, self-evidently ludicrous.

 

[El_Machinae]

This claim is, to use a phrase you used not so long ago, self-evidently ludicrous.

Then why do we need anti-discrimination laws with regards to employment? With providing services?

 

[Lexicus]

Then why do we need anti-discrimination laws with regards to employment? With providing services?

Slow down and explain this to me like I'm five because I'm not following this logical leap at all

 

[Evie]

It cannot help but be striking that after all the insistence that the condemnation wasn't of boycott, but specifically of boycott for bad reasons, we are now being told that the problem is that boycott are attempts to control which is distinct from telling people something is bad, mere persuasion.

 

[Lexicus]

It cannot help but be striking that after all the insistence that the condemnation wasn't of boycott, but specifically of boycott for bad reasons, we are now being told that the problem is that boycott are attempts to control which is distinct from telling people something is bad, mere persuasion.

It's also strange because it's like, kinda obviously true that a boycott is an attempt to exercise control over something. Like, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was an attempt to exercise control over the Montgomery bus system's racial segregation policies. The Boston non-importation agreement was an attempt to control British policy in the thirteen colonies. The international boycott against Germany after the Kristallnacht was an attempt to exercise control over Nazi racial discrimination policies. What's not clear is why these three boycotts would presumably be legitimate forms of political expression but for some reason Hollywood is off limits.

 

[El_Machinae]

Y'all posted while I was compiling. I hold it strongly possible that I don't understand what the disagreement with TF is.

Slow down and explain this to me like I'm five because I'm not following this logical leap at all

Boycotting someone is essentially the same as refusing to hire them because of something they're expressing.

Now, TraitorFish is pointing out that it's exercising power over them. He's coming at it from the perspective itself that using capital is itself coercive. Or, denying capital is. Two sides of the same, um, coin. People need capital to survive, it's not freedom if everyone is equally free to sleep under the bridge, property is theft. All that jazz. Market capitalism is fundamentally coercive.

Refusing to hire (or provide services to) someone if they (say) express a gender identity is functionally dissimilar from a boycott of that expression. If it isn't a means of control, then what is it?

The reason why we need the legislation is that it is a means of control. A means of control that occasionally needs to be neutered with legislation when 'positive consumption' is insufficient to the task. The control given by capital creates a situation so undesirable that we exercise democratic control over it.

I think that it's simple realism to recognize that spending (or denying) money is the exercise of coercion. So is voting. That's why you have to, because the power is being exercised over zero-sum stakes.

so I'll add that my concern here is that when we talk about boycotts, we're allowing the market to provide a sort of moral laundering.

I think this captures TF's concern, that talking about boycotting is somehow 'playing the game' of capitalism, and thus conceding capitalism's right to play that game. This draws parallels to people crowing about Trump getting banned from Twitter was accidentally supporting the idea of Twitter being a privately owned institution rather than really deserving to be a Public Utility.

My answer is: you gotta play the game within the constraints of reality. In practical terms, me tipping at a restaurant is subsidizing insufficient Minimum Wage laws. But, withholding my tip might not be the best way of removing that subsidy.

 

[Evie]

The fundamental difference between the boycott situation and the employment situation is one of imbalance of power in the rapport. Consumers and employees are in both case the weaker parties, versus businesses, hence we have (to differing degrees) laws protecting both groups in most places (consumer protection laws ; employee protection laws), and hence also why we tolerate and even encourage the banding together of employees (unions, strikes) and consumers (boycotts) to even out the odds with the business.

 

[Senethro]

I feel like those criticizing the "woke" for using boycotts as economic coercion are rarely going to be critics of Capital using economic coercion.

 

[Traitorfish]

My point is that you are drawing distinctions without difference in order to invent grounds on which to condemn the "woke" without ever actually engaging their arguments. You don't need to specifically respond to claims that a piece of media is racist, for example, if you can just frame the claim that it is racist and that people shouldn't watch it as some kind of illegitimate attack on the foundations of civilization (or cherished liberal values, or whatever).

You're attributing a lot of very sinister motives to me. How are you inferring them from what I've written?

 

[Lexicus]

You're attributing a lot of very sinister motives to me. How are you inferring them from what I've written?

I don't mean to attribute these motives to you, I'm sorry for that. I think you are getting taken in by right-wing memes that are motivated by what I described.

And I'll note for the record I am mostly not in favor of what's usually called "cancel culture." I do not like bourgeois liberals either. I just think the arguments you're making are bad arguments, not only on the merits but also because the fact that you're making them shows the success that the right has had in poisoning the discourse.

 

[João III]

I'm calling it 'negative advertising', the inverse of advertising. Or, 'leaving a review, hoping the company values the review'.

"Negative advertising" sounds like the alternative facts version of "smear campaign"

It's not just providing feedback, obviously, because you're also telling their customer base to reward their competitor in lieu.

Again, leaving a review is not the same as a boycott

 

[RobAnybody]

Regarding boycotts, I support them in general as a way to effect change, but what I don't like is when businesses cave due to the threat of a boycott. Or, worse, the possibility of a threat of a boycott. A vocal minority of folks denounce something very loudly on social media & they can cause a company to react before any actual repercussions have happened.

It's a bit like the filibuster - I'd prefer people have to actually make one happen, rather than just threaten to make one happen. Put the work in!

Actual boycotts rarely accomplish much, but sometimes they do. And that I'm totally fine with. It's just that a vocal minority can claim to speak for a vast majority, but until that threat actually materializes, I wish companies wouldn't react as if the threat had already materialized, because they very often don't & the loudest don't often actually speak for the majority. Plus, people just don't often follow through on threats.

To quote Kristen Bell's character from The Good Place when describing a moral dilemma she had: "There's this chicken sandwich that if you eat it, it means you hate gay people. But it's delicious!"

 

[Evie]

Considering "smears" is generally defined as false or slanderous, which opinions ("This movie is bad, you shouldn't see it!") generally are not unless entirely unreasonable; and unpleasant facts ("The Last Airbender recast all the non-white character of the original show with white actors") are definitely not... No, they're not inherently the same thing.

But calling them the same thing might qualify a a smear.

 

[Gorbles]

Again, leaving a review is not the same as a boycott

But negative reviews are a tool used in modern boycotts. It's not enough to simply not consume the product anymore - evidence of this in a nutshell is something like Steam Reviews (which have visible weight on the platform as an indicator of product popularity which is generally taken as quality - even when it perhaps shouldn't).

This thread has taken a very funny turn, I have to say.

I originally wanted to post (four or so pages back) how it's very funny that the thread has gone on this long with people insisting on the need to recognise "woke" as a label with some kind of valid meaning. And by that I mean "more meaning and more constructive purpose", regardless of how vaguely or broadly-applied this label is.

And this is funny to me specifically with regards to CFC OT. Because I don't understand this stake in the label from a posting population that tends to die on the hill of "white supremacist" and "transphobe" being too broadly-used and widely-applied (to the point of alleged uselessness).

But that's not the funny part. The funny part is how this indicates cultural leanings in general. I can't remember who said it (possibly El_Mac), possibly in this thread or maybe the personhood one. They're all kind of blending together at the moment. But they said you could accurately predict someone's beliefs across a range of topics by seeing a single response to a cultural flashpoint (or words to that effect. Apologies if I'm misinterpreting).

This is independent of professed political views, and so on. It doesn't necessarily track with voting preferences, for example. But it's such a funny barometer I can't help but laugh a bit. Because it leads people to adopt positions that seem at odds with their general posting history. But all it is is the "culture war" at work. Which is even funnier when you consider I'm posting this in a thread about wokeness.

 

[João III]

But negative reviews are a tool used in modern boycotts. It's not enough to simply not consume the product anymore - evidence of this in a nutshell is something like Steam Reviews (which have visible weight on the platform as an indicator of product popularity which is generally taken as quality - even when it perhaps shouldn't).

A coordinated campaign to leave negative reviews sounds a lot like review bombing

But they said you could accurately predict someone's beliefs across a range of topics by seeing a single response to a cultural flashpoint (or words to that effect. Apologies if I'm misinterpreting).

People certainly seem to believe they can accurately predict. Personally, I find it annoying. I'll make one post and suddenly people think they know every position I hold about everything

 

[Evie]

"Review bombing" is a pretty broad term that covers a wide range of moral reprehensibility.

If a large number of people are encouraging each other to massively give a review of the products that accurately reflect their opinion of it, and the reason for those opinions, it's not an inherently wrong practice. The reviews are informative.

If a large number of people are mass-reviewing without saying why (eg, just leaving a 0-5 star mark without actually stating what they feel are the problems with the product, and letting people assume what their zero stars review is about), that's, well, a misleading practice, and not good.

If a large number of people are mass-reviewing using outright lies about what their problem is, that would be the smear campaign you talked about earlier. If your problem is with the plot not going in a direction you like but you review to say the sound and graphic quality are horrible, you're kinda thrash.

If a small number of people are mass-reviewing using a large number of accounts, that's of course entirely despicable.

 

[Gorbles]

A coordinated campaign to leave negative reviews sounds a lot like review bombing

Sure it does. Which is often how boycotts turn out in this day and age. I said as much in my post - did you miss it or something?

Ergo, reviews can be a part of a boycott. On certain digital platforms, they can be the boycott. There's no need for every participant to not buy a game when sinking the game under 70% score drops it off of the front page of Steam (massively tanking it's visibility and thus sales).

Sure, I'm using Steam because it's an easy example and Valve only ever fix mistakes when they get bad press (hmm . . . something about that feels topical ), but I feel it stands. Something isn't bad because of some quantifiable attempt at exercising control. TF even tried to separate out "persuasion" (to boycott) from actually boycotting.

Which is kinda asinine, because people who persuade for something like that persuade because they're doing stuff like that. The degree of separation is an illusion, all because you and he have apparently settled on "boycott bad" as a baseline due to something about wokeness and cancel culture? If I'm reading things right?

People certainly seem to believe they can accurately predict. Personally, I find it annoying. I'll make one post and suddenly people think they know every position I hold about everything

A range of topics isn't the same as everything, so let's not be daft, eh? You're not (daft).

From a handful of your posts to specific, major topics, I personally would've guessed you were relatively culturally conservative (on the whole) and from that it's an absolute no-brainer to predict your response to, say, this thread. Any I'm very sure folks could do the same about me.

Knowing where someone sits isn't the same as knowing the exact arguments they're going to make, either. But the problem with culture war nonsense is, in my experience, it's the same handful of points repackaged over and over again.

 

[El_Machinae]

In fairness "confidently predicting" can be its own danger. This is separate from "use to predict", which is just noting a correlation.

When it comes to review bombing ....

There is always the risk of the mob being wrong. It often is and the damage that a mob of dangerously confident people can do is obvious. A wave of reviews against a play that very much doesn't state what each overly confident reviewer announces is damaging. Beating up the guy who wore the same hat as the roofie-dropper is damaging.

And, in the same vein, we're all at risk of individually contributing to our own demise in very real and tangible ways, all without thinking we're doing anything. In Canada, so is using your credit card to make a purchase "for the points". Or, heck, thinking that 'just one more cigarette butt' doesn't affect the aggregate. There are so many risks.

 

[Evie]

Every decision we make in life is a calculated risk.

I'd rather live in a world where weaker voices can speak up, and band together and organize when opposing stronger voices, than in a world where the powerful voices are the only ones we hear and the isolated weak voices are just drowned out. Collective action is a fundamental tool to redress power imbalances.

That collective action can be misguided does not make it less essential.

 

[João III]

"Review bombing" is a pretty broad term that covers a wide range of moral reprehensibility.

If a large number of people are encouraging each other to massively give a review of the products that accurately reflect their opinion of it, and the reason for those opinions, it's not an inherently wrong practice. The reviews are informative.

I have never heard the above described as review bombing. Everything else you described would go under the umbrella of review bombing

If a large number of people are mass-reviewing using outright lies about what their problem is, that would be the smear campaign you talked about earlier. If your problem is with the plot not going in a direction you like but you review to say the sound and graphic quality are horrible, you're kinda thrash.

I said "negative marketing" sounds like the alternative facts version of a smear campaign. I didn't say what he was describing is a smear campaign

Sure it does. Which is often how boycotts turn out in this day and age. I said as much in my post - did you miss it or something?

Ergo, reviews can be a part of a boycott. On certain digital platforms, they can be the boycott. There's no need for every participant to not buy a game when sinking the game under 70% score drops it off of the front page of Steam (massively tanking it's visibility and thus sales).

I guess you could say reviews can be a part of a boycott but I wouldn't consider review bombing the same as boycotting. Otherwise it'd be called boycotting and not review bombing

The degree of separation is an illusion, all because you and he have apparently settled on "boycott bad" as a baseline due to something about wokeness and cancel culture? If I'm reading things right?

I've never said boycotts are bad. It's about the intent behind them, regarding film and television in this case.

A range of topics isn't the same as everything, so let's not be daft, eh? You're not (daft).

From a handful of your posts to specific, major topics, I personally would've guessed you were relatively culturally conservative (on the whole) and from that it's an absolute no-brainer to predict your response to, say, this thread. Any I'm very sure folks could do the same about me.

You would have predicted I'd agree with the OP?

Knowing where someone sits isn't the same as knowing the exact arguments they're going to make, either. But the problem with culture war nonsense is, in my experience, it's the same handful of points repackaged over and over again.

The problem is the difference between knowing and thinking you know